


The Thirtieth of May

by RoseParfait



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24819928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseParfait/pseuds/RoseParfait
Summary: The story of Joan from Arthur's perspective.
Relationships: Arthur Kirkland/Francis Bonnefoy, England/France (Hetalia)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	The Thirtieth of May

**Author's Note:**

> This one-shot was originally posted on Lofter and taken down by myself several years ago. Unfortunately I lost that Lofter account and forgot under which alias/pseud I posted it.

We never speak of this day, Francis and I. It’s not a taboo — no, Lizzy, one day when you get older, you will understand that taboo is a funny concept to the beings of my kind — only that we don’t find it necessary to talk about it after all this time.

He still goes to Rouen every year. And I sometimes go myself as well. If I have time that is. But we don’t go together. We simply don’t. Visiting one of our own cities — former in my case — is nothing to be fussed over. 

I’m an old man now, older than any mortal man and old enough to prefer the tranquility of reading and embroidering and reading to the thrill of rage and bloodshed. It may be surprising, but Francis doesn’t relate this story very often, and I, understandably, even less. It’s one thing to remember, yet quite another to recount. That is to say, if you really want to hear this story from me, you’ll have to excuse an old man’s forgetfulness.

Long long ago, there was a time when skies were blue and meadows green, and we, Francis and I and others, all of us, truly believed in every war we fought in. 

We were very young at that time. You know, my kind ages differently. Those, I should call our adolescent years. I appeared a teenage boy then and had every fibre of recklessness that an ordinary teenage boy has, always riding at the head of the troops beside my kings or champions, ready to strike at any minute. Francis was scarcely more mature. We understood little about whatever was going on between kings and queens and the nobles in our sophisticated courts. Indeed, humans mature so much more quickly than our kind that they were already too sophisticated for us in medieval times. When our kings decided to go to war, we fought along, without fully grasping the reason and cause for the said war. But during the short periods of peace, we gladly left the reins to our kings and lords, and they regarded themselves as the rightful owners of our lands.

In hindsight, the Hundred Years’ war was a war between the French and the English, rather than between Francis Bonnefoy and Arthur Kirkland. I can never admit this, but Francis and I were friends — we had been from the beginning and will be till the end — despite the rival nobles on both sides of the channel and the disputed claims on the French throne. We didn’t — couldn’t, actually — say it aloud though. We had to pretend we hated each other with a burning passion, as our kings dictated us to. Boy or man we may appear, we know from the very first day of our being who we are — what we are — we are no human, and do not have the privilege of thinking and feeling like one. The thing is, we were so good at pretending that for a very long time we thought we really did hate the other. 

She was a peasant girl, who didn’t even know her own last name. I wouldn’t call her a natural beauty, with her hair messy and her dress unbecoming. How old was she then? Fourteen, or fifteen maybe? Anyway, she was young and reckless, just like us. And even less did she understand the essence of the war between the French and the English.

She was so much like us, yet she was also so much more.

As much as my pride would like to deny, Francis taught me quite a lot back then, just like she did him. Francis was, as they called him, “the most Christian country” in all Europe. But it was she who showed him that miracles really did sometimes come to the devoted and faithful. She was more a warrior than all the lords in France combined and more a Christian than all the bishops in Rome put together. The dauphin Charles might have his forehead anointed and call himself the King of France all he wanted, she was the Queen of Francis’s. 

And she was convicted of heresy, as the great and the good of mine declared triumphantly. 

It was a hideous spectacle, no doubt. I didn’t hate her, even though I pretended to. In truth, I quite admired her, as a nation could admire a human; and never wanted her to die such a terrible death, disgraced by her church and deserted by her king. But I held up my head, as the great and the good of mine told me to. They cheered as they watched, singing praises to Lord Almighty and my young king, that unfortunate boy who would later throw away everything his champions and bishops worked vehemently to secure. They urged me to cheer along. I tried, very hard in fact, until I saw Francis turned his gaze away. And I tried no more.

The conviction was ridiculous, of course. But so were many other things in medieval times. Human lives are so short that they are spared the utter embarrassment to see the things they have once believed in turn out stupid. Really, mortality is a blessing that the beings of our kind are often deprived of.

Her tragic ending taught Francis, without her consent or consciousness, a lesson entirely different from all those before. Devotion and faith may call from within oneself strength and bravery, and occasionally, from heaven miracles. Religion, however, is a whole different matter and when infused with human greed and ambitions can be the deadliest weapon men ever wield. I see it now. But I didn’t see it in — you’ll have to excuse me saying — the crazy days of the Tudors. In hindsight also, I now understand why Francis laughed at me for being so serious about the religion reformation back then. 

Now you see, Lizzy, I wasn’t always so wise. I had my fair share of stupidity, ignorance and arrogance, as much as I hate to admit, and more often than not had to learn crucial lessons the hard way. We nations are, quite literally, late bloomers. While you humans learn a lot within your little life spans, we learn little, in bits and pieces, not from our own lives, but from yours. We only become old and wise after centuries of wars and conflicts and accumulation of our peoples' experiences and knowledge. I sometimes envy humans.

Joan became a saint, five centuries later. Francis didn't seemed impressed, when her canonisation came about. Understandably so, I should say. He was the most Christian country no more. Neither was he inexperienced and politically unaware any longer. We came to master eventually, at formidable costs, being ourselves. But Joan was, and always will be in Francis’s memory, the girl who raised the banner with the fleurs-des-lis in the battlefields, who dreamily talked about angels and gospels every time the church bells rang, who jumped from that tower of Luxembourg without hesitation because her angels told her to, and who answered defiantly to those important lords and gave them so much trouble in all those sophisticated Latin documents. No more, no less. Saint, peasant or witch.

Am I — was I ever — jealous of her? Certainly, no. We love our people, naturally. I was very fond of your namesake, too, Lizzy. But that was a totally different sort of fondness. 

You are now pondering over my story. What I can tell you is, there never was the so-called reconciliation, not in the form you may be thinking of, at least. Why, because there needn’t be. 

Humans come and go, while we don’t. We have been confined in this world for millennia, be it a curse or blessing, and will still be, for God knows how long. We grow used to saying goodbye to people. We also grow used to the fact that, at the end of the day, after all the chaos and turmoils, all we have is ourselves, the nations, or, the personifications of nations as you humans call us. It’s no pleasant fact, but it’s a fact nonetheless. 

Kings, queens and warriors die. Wars become legends. But, as it turns out, though I still can’t say it out loud, the feelings once buried at the bottom of our hearts do not just fade away with the mortal ones. Instead, they resurface and shine through, often at the most unexpected moments. And after a while, we began to accept them and accept ourselves. True, we are no human. Yet we are every human who has ever walked on our soil, and every one who is yet to be. Then, why shouldn’t we, why can’t we, live and love like one?


End file.
